The invention relates to a system for depositing cheese on a pizza crust and, more particularly, to a system for forming a bead of cheese on the periphery of a crust for forming a stuffed rim thereof
Currently, precooked frozen pizzas that have a rim stuffed with cheese are made by manually placing strips of string mozzarella cheese about the periphery of the crust with the edge of the crust folded over thereon. As is apparent, the manual labor required with the making of the stuffed rims is labor intensive and limits production rates.
Another shortcoming of the above-described process is in the use of string cheese. First, string cheese is a relatively expensive raw material due in part to the fact that it is a perishable item which requires that it be manufactured when fresh. Another problem is that string mozzarella cheese typically is not manufactured in large quantities because of its perishable nature, e.g. shelf life of approximately 14 days. On the other hand, IQF (Individually Quick Frozen) shreds of mozzarella cheese are generally lower in price because they are frozen which allows the manufacturer to make large quantities of the cheese when their raw material costs therefor are low and slow down or temporarily cease manufacture when raw materials are at higher costs.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved system and method for producing pizza crusts having cheese filled rims. Further, the system and process should be able to produce large quantities of the stuffed crusts with high production throughput while minimizing costs associated therewith.
In accordance with the invention, a system and method are provided for forming IQF shreds of mozzarella cheese into a bead form and depositing it on the periphery of a crust for a pizza. The invention heats and extrudes the IQF shreds with the extrudable mass formed into a bead for placement on the crust about the periphery thereof. The body of the cheese in its bead form lacks the desired stringiness characteristic of string mozzarella cheese. This stretchiness or string characteristic is one feature that makes string mozzarella cheese particularly well-suited for use with pizza. However, after the pizza crust including the bead of cheese is baked, it has been found that the cheese reconstitutes to provide a stringiness characteristic thereto similar to that provided by string mozzarella cheese.
In one form of the invention, a system is provided for forming a paste-like bead of cheese from small frozen shreds of cheese and depositing the bead on a pizza crust. The system includes a heating apparatus having a chamber for receiving the frozen cheese shreds and a tempering portion for raising the temperature of the cheese shreds for further processing. An extrusion apparatus is provided for forming the cheese shreds into an extrudable mass. The extrusion apparatus includes an advancing mechanism which drives the mass of cheese for being deposited onto the pizza crust. An extrusion head is provided for the extrusion apparatus and has at least one outlet from which the cheese exits to form and deposit the bead on the crust. Accordingly, the present system allows for use of IQF mozzarella shreds and obviates the manual labor of having workers manually place the mozzarella strings on the crust about its periphery, thus reducing raw material and labor costs associated with the process of forming cheese stuffed rims for frozen pizzas.
In another aspect of the invention, an automated method of making pizza crusts having a rim full of cheese is provided. The automated method includes providing a crust having a peripheral region thereabout, heating small shreds of frozen mozzarella cheese, extruding the heated mozzarella cheese to a smooth paste-like body of cheese in a bead form with the body lacking stringiness, depositing the bead of cheese about the peripheral region of the crust, folding an edge of the crust over the bead of cheese, and baking the crust with the mozzarella cheese bead reconstituting so that the body has stringiness. The method uses IQF mozzarella shreds formed into a paste so it can be laid down as a bead about the crust with the body of the bead lacking the stringiness quality desired for pizza cheeses. However, after cooking, the mozzarella in the bead reconstitutes so that it has string similar to the more expensive string mozzarella cheese.